This Year's Return of The Worlds Strongest Men

The World Strongest Man competition is to be sponsored by Met-Rx, a brand well known for their whey protein. For the first time ever, the competition will be held at a university campus, Wingate University in North Carolina.

The World’s Strongest Man tournament has long been the most recognised annual event in strength based athletics, in which the finest competitors from all over the world face off in a series of competitive bodybuilding workouts and weight lifting exercises. The competition has long been the premier feat of strength, endurance and power with entrants competing against each other in amazing challenges. Events include pulling trucks and lifting cars. The goal of the competition is to find the strongest man in the world.

The competition has run for 34 years now, making it a real landmark on the weight lifting circuit. The competition is broadcast on television throughout the world each year. Some of the previous exotic destinations where Worlds Strongest Man has been held include Malaysia and Mauritius as well as China and Zambia. It has also made iconic sporting figures of past champions, including Bill Kazmaier, Jon Pall Sigmarsson, Magnus ver Magnusson and Mariusz Pudzianowski, as well as England’s own Geoff Capes, who became the first non-American to claim the title in 1983.

The event will be happening this year at various places dotted around the Wingate University. Students of the university that are studying both sports science and communications will benefit according to the university president, Dr Jerry McGee. Getting a chance to see how a global television spectacular like this will surely be of benefit to students as well as the chance to watch the event and to meet the athletes.

Some of the events genuinely sound more like torture than a sport! I can barely carrying my shopping after a long day, so the farmers walk where athletes carry up to 170 kilograms in each hand in a walking race seems particularly challenging. Maybe the fridge walk will sound more to your liking, where the competitor has a fridge full of weights on either side of their body attached to a yolk across their shoulders. Again the object of the event is to travel at speed. Tossing the caber is a great event which doesn’t seem anywhere near as unpleasant as many others. The crucifix seems the worst, where the athletes hold weights out either side of their body with upright arms until they can hold no longer. Every year though, the crowd will go wild for the truck or aeroplane pull. Seeing the strongest men in the world pulling a jumbo jet is about as good as it gets.

Winning the first ever competition which was held at the Universal Studios in LA, Bruce Wilhelm was the first person to get the title of World’s Strongest Man. The former Olympian then went on to win the event again in 1978. For the next few years American competitors went on to repeatedly win the title. Talents emerging during this period included Bill Kazmaier who was one of the best competitors in the history of strongman competitions. As an experienced power lifting champion it was no surprise that Bill went on to win the competition for 3 consecutive years in the early 1980s. The early 80s were dominated by the power lifter who won it right up until Geoff Capes’ famous victory in 1983.